the task of helping guide an economy. >> this as our new nbc news/wall street journal poll shows the president and romney are all but tied as voters become more pessamiimistic about the econom. he's not ready to endorse president obama again but listen to what he told me today about mitt romney's foreign policy. >> i think he needs to really not just accept these cataclysmic sort of pronouncements. he really needs to think carefully about these statements. >> my conversation with former secretary of state general colin powell on politics and the lessons of war and those nonexistent wmds. and move over will smith. there's a new fresh pins spinning the turntables. -- fresh prince spinning the turntables. >> good day. i'm andrea mitchell live in new york. an exclusive interview with mark

halperin, mitt romney responded directly to his attacks on bain capital. mark has just returned from conducting that interview which will be part of the magazine's newest issue and is up online. he's also, of course, an msnbc political editor. thank you very much for joining us as a contributor. very interesting in that you tried to pin him down on bain and he pivoted in a sort of classic game changing way. let's take a look. >> the president says he wants to focus a lot of the election debate on your career at bain capital. do you welcome that? >> well, of course, i'd like to also focus on his record. what is it that he's done as the president of the united states over the last four years? has he established the revitalization he promised he would bring to us? did he hold unemployment below 8%? it's been what, 39 months now. that hasn't happened. he promised it would happen by virtue of his stimulus.

gasoline prices, home prices, are they happy with the prices? level of foreclosures? do they think someone can do better? this is a president who spends his time blaming other people for the fact that he has been unsuccessful in turning around had economy. i think the reason you're seeing it across the country people saying they'd like to try someone new is because they believe this president, while he may be a nice guy is simply not up to the task of helping guide an economy. >> he doesn't respond directly to the challenges about the job losses, the companies that were put out of business. what many people including of course, the obama commercials claim, are the way private equity does push people out and simply increase profits as they are supposed to but increase profits rather than creating jobs. >> in the face of the president and the vice president going directly at all those issues, i gave him several chances to push back. clearly as you saw from that portion of the interview, he wanted to talk about the

president's record and wants this election to be about the record. he did reply once and said there's so many things to do. he said i can read a balance sheet. he did talk about energy. i think there may be the beginning of a possible pushback where he said when i took over companies i saw what their energy bills were like. i know to be competitive in our society and the word economy, you need to bring down energy costs. i will do that. >> he doesn't say how. he's not laid out a real energy policy. >> he's got some energy policy. certainly for instance, he's advertising saying he would approve the keystone pipeline, thing the president hasn't done yet. so i think that people do want to hear from him as i asked him, what is it about your experience at bain? what is it really? what does it problem to you? the president and vice president are saying it doesn't prove anything. as joe biden said, it doesn't make him any more qualified than being a plummer.

he's so certain that people get that that just saying 25 years in the private sector, people get what that means he hasn't fully realized he has to explain it more. if you listen to the energy answer, you'll hear at least what i think is the beginning of laying out something that says huh, maybe that experience is about more than just in some instances people losing their jobs >> he has brought back something that republicans have tried to use against president obama, the community organizer tag. let's watch this clip. >> you welcome scrutiny of your business record, is that right? >> well, mark, what i can tell you is this, the fact is that i spent 25 years in the private sector. and that obviously teaches you something that you don't learn if you haven't spent any time in the private sector. if you were to say to me, tell me what you learned from your schooling that would help you be a president, it's like how do i begin going through a list like that. you learn through life's experience. the president's experience has been exclusively in politics and

as a community organizer. both of those are fine areas of endeavor. but right now, we have an economy in trouble. and someone who spent their career in the scome more suited to help fix the economy than someone who spent his life in politics and as a community organizer. >> twice he mentioned community organizer. when he talks about fixing the economy, he made news in your interview because he also said that he would not do anything in the lame duck. he does not want a grand bargain and doesn't want to do what john boehner is talking about and what business groups are screaming for, which is addressing all of the issues. if he doesn't want to do it in the lame duck, would he let the bush tax cuts expire? >> the aftermath of the election is important. with all those things the tax cuts that go away january 1st and the spending cuts that come in, that would be cataclysmic and put us back in recession. in the lame duck session where a

lot of members of congress say if he's the president elect, he doesn't want for president obama as a lame duck to work with the current congress to try to get things moving. he doesn't want them to do anything. he doesn't want his hands tied. he wants it dealt with when he takes office january 20th. he won't clear on whether he wants at least the lame duck to pass an extension. what he suggested was that rather than do a grand bargain, a big package of tool big to fail package with tax reform and spending and tax changes, he thinks you could deal with it skeengsly. unlike speaker boehner who thinks the only way is one big package, he said you could deal with it over time, perhaps passing something that would extend the tax cuts, extend -- put off the spending cuts till a series of packages could be passed. that's a big difference both of those things from what a lot of people in washington are talking about. >> mark halperin making news right here again. congratulations on that.

as we just heard, romney is not giving an inch on his record at bain capital as a qualification to be president. the campaign is using some of the president's own supporters to beat back the democratic attacks. >> former congressman harold ford junior, democrat from the tennessee. >> private equity is not a bad thing. matter of fact, private equity is a good thing in many, many instances. >> former obama economic adviser and auto czar steven rattner, a leading democrat. >> and i don't think there's anything bain capital did they need to be embarrassed about. >> if you look at the totality of bain's record, they've done a lot to support businesses to grow businesses. >> even obama's own supporters have had enough. >> it's nauseating to the american public. enough is enough. >> and joining me now to speak for himself, president obama's former auto czar, steve ratner who was featured as you saw in that ad. steve, you have an op-ed in today's "new york times" trying to explain in a more coherent

way, not a five-second sound bite put in a republican ad what you really believe about private equity, bain capital and the pros and cons of had argue. >> that's what i was trying to do in the times today. my point is simply, i was in private equity for nearly a decade. private equity is a perfectly respectable part of our financial system. it adds value to our economy. it does help the capitalistic system to function but it is not a job creation goal. it is not -- people who go into private equity don't go in saying i want to create jobs but to make returns for investors. i wanted to make sure i laid that out clearly. >> many people believe what romney has done in claiming he is a job creator and that is his record from bain capital is as you point out, silly and contradictory because bain capital was not in business to create jobs. they were in business to make money for investors. at the same time, was he that eager so eager to avoid being tagged as the former

massachusetts governor? that he doesn't want to talk about the massachusetts record for probably a number of reasons but also because that is not what he wants to be his calling card. he wants to be the businessman, the guy who can get things done, who can fix it, not the oh, that liberal massachusetts record, which is the sort of stereotype. >> that liberal massachusetts record and, of course, there's the point that mass was 47th in job creation when he was governor. >> minor point. >> the democrats love to jam him with it. he seems to much prefer to be thought of as a business guy. i would have no problem with that. i think business is a useful experience, not saying it qualifies you to be president but as he said, it's part of life's experience. it's when he rewe haves history and tries to turn a perfectly respectable business career into some idea he was the world's greatest job creator i think he is misleading people. >> the republicans including the other day when i was interviewing eric fehrnstrom claim that mitt romney has created more net jobs in his

role as a governor and as a bain capital executive than president obama has for the entire nation. and it just seems like that's really false accounting. he's counting every job that bain capital ever created before or after he even left the company and every job that was lost in the national economy during that first month or two when president obama took it over when it was still recording the results of absolutely the results of the bush record. >> that's exactly right. you know the old joke about lies, damn lies and statistics. you can do whatever you want with numbers. romney's numbers, you're correct that most of those 100,000 jobs actually are staples. 90,000 of those 100,000 jobs are a small investment that bain capital made in the late 19 0s in staples. they went public a few years later when it had 1100 employees. when romney left it had 40,000 employees but he's taking credit for all 90,000. the flipside is when president

obama runs an ad jobs lost at a steel company that bain invested in, romney says i was gone already. he's trying to count the jobs that he created right up to today and so forth. when the president took office, the economy was losing something like 700,000 jobs a month. over 2 million private sector jobs have been created since the bottom of the recession. i think the president has a credible argument to make that he has created jobs. >> a couple of other things. big picture, the euro zone, all of the stresses on greece coming out of the g-8 meeting. you saw merkel isolated in her mother or less still austerity pitch without sarkozy, with the addition of a socialist president hollande from france. as someone in that sector, what is scaring markets so much about -- is it the contagion if greece is discounted, it's going to spread to spain, portugal, italy? >> what's scaring markets is not the debate between austerity and

growth. it's the fact that the structure of the eurozone is fundamentally flawed. you have a bunch of highly competitive economies led by germany shackled to a bunch of uncompetitive economies including spain and italy. so it's a fundamentally structurally flawed mechanism. and the feeling here is that the europeans have almost da no idea what to do about. it. >> no exit strategy, no political or economic exit. difficult to figure out what the soft landing would be. steve ratner, thank you. great to see new person. >> thank you very much. up next, former secretary of state colin powell talking presidential politics and those missing wmds. this is "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. ♪ spread a little love my way ♪ ♪ spread a little something to remember ♪ ♪ ♪ spread a little joy... [ female announcer ] fresh milk and real cream.

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and joining me now former secretary of state colin powell. author of the new book "it worked for me in life and leadership." congratulations on the book. >> thank you very much. >> why did you write the book? what did you want to accomplish in this book that you haven't said before. >> i wanted to share some of my life experiences with people, not a political memoir. a couple of chapters, i say political memoir. but it's warm stories about things that happened to me. how i interaced with people and how they interaced with me. what i learned from those experiences. i wanted to put a book out that youngsters would read. i gave to my son to read and after he was halfway through he gave it to my grandson and said read this. it's a book for young people, for business leaders, for military leaders. a lot of lessons on leadership and life. one of my buddies said i'm going to use it for bible study this weekend. there are some parables in the book.

>> let's talk about leadership. one of the things that you say is after 30 days, you own the sheets. it's an old army expression meaning you have to take ownership of it. so when we look at foreign policy and look at politics in this election year, after 30 days, you own the sheets. so by now, three years in, should president obama own the economy and no longer be saying yeah, but i inherited all this from george w. bush? >> that's the way we do it in the military. i had an observation in this same chapter that says this applies everywhere except in politics where you blame the guy before you as long as you can. after awhile in the military you take accountability and responsibility. you can't blame anybody else. you own the sheets. sheets are polimissing, they'rer problem. i would suggest that's not bad for politics either. we don't want to hear about what the last guy did, what have you done and what are you going to do to fix the problems. that's the challenge the president has for the next few months. >> the after action report which

is the military's way of approaching everything, what is the after action report as we attempt to wind down this war in afghanistan? >> i think there will be a lot of after action reviewing. what did we do right and wrong. what's the proper role of insurgency actions and is this at the expense of regular conventional forces. and my military colleagues are lard at work designing new strategies, new equipment new techniques. my caution is don't always think that the next war, the next conflict is going to be just like this one. and have always advocated having a full conventional force capability. be ready to do whatever comes along. you can't predict it. in my own experience, we fought desert storm, the first desert storm. i used the army we had prepared for germany and for the russians and used it in the desert. you never know what's coming. make sure you have a very, very strong capable comprehensive force. i hope that's the lesson

learned. i also hope a lesson learned not only for my military colleagues but for political leaders is make sure you know what you're getting into. you can't predict everything but have a pretty good idea of what might come next after you've taken the first hill. >> as the president reframed it at the nato summit, we can't stay there forever. they have to take over. we still have not proved they can lead in the south and the east and the most highly contested areas. will it be mission incomplete? >> i wouldn't characterize it that way. i would say mission realistic. we have been there for ten years. i think what the nato leaders led by the president did over the week was pretty sound, essentially said look, we're going to cease active combat operations at the end of 2013 and pull out by the end of 2014. it's yours. we have helped you train hundreds of thousands of soldiers and policemen. we've taught you what a democratic representative formal government should be like and told you the importance of

ending corruption, killing off the poppy fields and not becoming a source of drugs to the world. at some point it becomes their destiny to control and design. in iraq, once we left, it's up to the iraqis to figure out. it's a little choppy and uneasy, but our birth was a little choppy for a couple hundred years. you just have to let them go, be there to give support, give advise. give some assistance, but it's time to bring our active duty soldiers home. they've been at this for ten straight years and the reservists. >> and the reservists and the tempo of these repeated tours of duty have been so burdensome for the troops, for the families at home and for the nation of course, economically. you write before we invaded iraq, we should have listened to more people with ground troop experience in the region. these people were out there and fewer idea heavy big egos in washington.

>> the reality is that none of us thought it would be hard to go to baghdad and take down the regime. we had pretty much knocked it around in the first gulf war. they weren't the same army. but what we were saying a number of us was that hey, that isn't the end of it. you're going to have to secure this place. we're going to break it, we own it. and there were a lot of people who thought that it would just snap back in place in some manner after 90 days. that was the original thinking. it wasn't going to happen. we quickly found out that wasn't going to happen and we couldn't have victory. we had a problem on our hands. the insurgency started and it took several years before we realized that the insurgency was our problem and preserve ordered the surge. i wish that surge had been there at the beginning or had been implemented earlier rather than thinking everything was just going to snap back in place. the key turning poin was when the u.n. representative got killed. that should have been a wake-up call, hey, this is not in good

shape. >> he will we'll talk about wmd, iraq, iran, the lessons learned that u.n. speech when we come back with general powell. more with secretary former secretary of state colin powell coming up. so, ah, your seat good? got the mirrors all adjusted? you can see everything ok?

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[ male announcer ] it made a big splash with the employees. [ duck yelling ] [ male announcer ] find out more at... [ duck ] aflac! [ male announcer ] ...forbusiness.com. ♪ ha ha! institute welcome back. we're here with general colin powell. february 5th, 2003, a day i will remember forever, but it is seared into your memory. you write, it's burned into my memory as my own birthday. the event will earn a prominent paragraph in my obituary. >> i get asked about that speech almost every day, every appearance i give. the reality is that it was the most visual dramatic presentation of the evidence that we had. and it came out of the national intelligence estimate that had been given to the congress months before. congress used that to pass a resolution supporting war four months earlier. >> but this was the world is taken. >> this was the real show. and worked hard on it, and

everything i said that day was testified to by the intelligence community. >> you believed was true at the time. >> yes, so did they. they shouldn't have. there were a lot of people in the agency, in the community that knew some of this information wasn't as solid as it was being presented to me, and it was also presented to the president. there was nothing that i used, the president hasn't used in the state of the union that wasn't in the nie that the congress used. >> when did you first realize it was wrong and there were no wmds. >> after the presentation and then i was, my appearance was seconded by my british and spanish colleagues. they agreed. they had the same intelligence. but as the weeks went by, suddenly this mobile van that was supposed to be making bacterial elements we discovered, it couldn't be. it was a piece of junk almost. and yet, six weeks after we had captured this thing, the cia was still saying it was designed to be for bacterial warfare.

pie intelligence staff by now said we've looked at this thing. don't say ta anymore. and six months later in august, the cia was putting out a report saying that they stood behind their original judgments of last year even though we hadn't found anything. so they stuck with it. >> do you worry the healthy skip tickism about american intelligence could be taken too far? >> when we look at iran right now, negotiations going on, there's so much disbelief about what the u.s. says about the possibility of iran really planning for weapons. and that really does go back to iraq and what happened. >> to some extent yes, but i think the skepticism that the intelligence community is showing is that they don't know whether or not or they're not saying that iran is going for a weapon. so they're not leaping ahead to say since they have a program, they must be producing a weapon.

i don't deny that they might be or want to be producing a weapon but the evidence is not there yet. and i noticed that in the last 24 hours, we see some developments with the iaea chief coming out with a potential solution and -- >> already suggested even going into these negotiations that the president is showing weakness toward iran. >> what would mr. romney -- i don't know what he would prefer to do. the fact of the matter is we need a negotiated solution. the only way you can get a negotiated solution is to talk to the other side. now with iran, i think all of us know by now that they will pull the football out from under you in a heart beat. so don't go in there with any loft expectations but you talk to them. at the same time, let's remember the weaknesses of iran. they are under enormous economic pressure as i an result of the sanctions. they're totally isolated. nobody's on their side. and they have a program that they've been working on for all these years. in my ten years of chairmanship

and the secretary of state, i kept hearing iran's going to have a weapon in the next year. well they haven't. they haven't been that successful at it, but i don't deny that they may really want to be movering in this direction. i think it is still possible to find a solution that stons them at the point where they are developing power, electric power from nuclear facilities, but you could stop them from going up the chain of enrichment to producing a weapon. >> do you worry that the romney campaign, mitt romney, has been too adversarial, too hard line on foreign policy? he has said that the greatest adversary is potentially russia. he's lining up some very, very conservative foreign policy advisers whom you know well. >> i know many of them. some of them are my good friends, some of them i agree with, some of them i don't. i think he really needs to not just accept these cataclysmic

sort of pronounce ps, he needs to think carefully about these stams. they're now on the wall for people to see. when you see a russian federation that has its own internal problems, a russian federation going through transition and transformation that has the gdp of a mid-sized european country that's only half the population that the old soviet union used to be and its population is dropping, had he need to have a good relationship with us. they need to sell with us just like the chinese do. let's not go creating enemies where none yet exists. does this mean we should trust putin or medvedev? no, let's be mature people and look at the reality of the situation and not find ways to see if we can hyper bowize the situation. >> speaking of pipe boley, do you worry about the rhetoric on both sides? you worked in the private sector. you were on boards. you understand private equity. do you believe the president has framed this campaign correctly

when he goes after bain capital? >> we are now in a political season. each side will find whatever weakness he thinks exists in the other side. i find nothing evil about equity capital. i am in a venture capital company. i'm a limited partner in one of them. and so they will perform an essential role in our capitalist system. venture capital, equity companies bet on things that are going to be successful. they miss a lot of their bets. that's part of the business. sometimes they kill off companies that need to be killed off because they are no longer relevant. that's part of our system. now whether the president will you know make a case that what will mr. romney has been doing isn't the good part of our system remains to be seen. but we're now in that season where the shots are going to be going back and foorg rth on any angle that the opposite thinks will hit. >> why haven't you endorsed yet. you inspired president obama before. >> i came out on a book tour.

i'm under no pressure as a private citizen to endorse or not to endorse. i enjoy watching what both sides are doing. i think president obama has been successful in stabilizing the economy or at least the financial aspects of the economy and in fixing the auto industry and other things. i think he has to improve his relationship with the business community. i would love to have seen guantanamo shut down right away but the congress wouldn't allow that. >> what about simpson-bowles? >> i think it was a great possibility. >> and a missed opportunity. >> missed on both sides because that commission was supposed to be congressional little mandated. and congress wouldn't do it. and then we had a good group of bipartisan folks get together and put together what i think was a pretty good approach to a problem, and the president wouldn't accept it for reasons of his own and it wasn't accepted on the other side. now we have lots of suggestions but no real plan. the only plan that will work in my judgment to deal with our

fiscal problem is for everything to be on the table, defense has to be on the table, entitlements have to be on the table. revenue increase has to be on the table. a lot of government can be cut when you tell them we're going to cut three departments, that's rhetoric and nonsense. there are lots of things that i think you can do more if ishtly and at less cost. why the can't we reform the tax code? if they really were serious, they would go to work tomorrow morning and lay out all the tax code stuff. why do you and i get mortgage deductions? why are housing, nice houses we live in, do you know my house, i know your house. why should the average american citizen be subsidizing that if i want a nice house and i can afford it, pay for it. i mean there are lots of things like that any regrets you didn't run? you write in the book how wrenching the decision was, you lost sleep. >> it was an ugly time because i never expected to be approached in that way and have so much pressure put on me.

you were there for the whole time. and so i had to think about it because it was expected. but after a few weeks of it, i realized that this is just not me. this is not what i should do. therefore, i followed my instinct which was right, and my wife of course, as you well know, she was not interested in it either but it wasn't her. it was me. i didn't have the passion to do what politicians do. i'm so glad we have them. we have to have them. glad we've got a mitt romney, john mccain, barack obama, bushes, everybody, terrific. but it just wasn't me. when i said no, i said i'd find other things to do to serve the country and i have. >> it worked for me in life and leadership. it's worked for you. and thank you for your service. >> thank you, andrea. and up next, a first look at our new poll on how latino voters view mitt romney.

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backed by our low price guarantee. yard well done. >> and topping the had had lines right now, secret service director mark sullivan is facing the music today in congress for the first time since the prostitution scandal erupted and face tough questions whether the agency's culture condoned the bad behavior during that cartagena summit. the senate committee's top republican susan collins pointed out that the agents didn't seem at all worried about being caught and those involved including supervisors listed themselves on the hotel registry. director sullivan apologized for the episode but called the idea it was condoned absurd. >> between the alcohol and i don't know the environment, these individuals did some really dumb things. and i just can't explain why they would have done what they would do, but i will tell you i

do not believe they did it because they believed that this type of behavior would be tolerated. >> nancy reagan is recovering slowly after breaking six ribs in a fall at her los angeles home. word of that injury came only after she failed to show up at congressman paul ryan's appearance at the reagan presidential library last night. the 90-year-old former first lady was actually injured six weeks ago. mariel low castro, daughter of raul castro has arrived in san francisco where she will meet with gay rights activists and join a conference on transgender health care. she is an outspoken advocate for gay rights. and jurors are deliberating for a fourth day in the edwards corruption trial. he faces six felony counts if convicts, he faces up to 30 years in prison. millions of egyptians are lining up to vote for the first time in a free presidential election after the revolution in tahrir square. it pits supporters of the old

regime against islamists among others, arguably the entire future of the region and its relationship with israel is on the line. chief foreign correspondent richard engel covered the tumultuous events of the arab spring and is back if cairo. bear with us, richard, but we want to know what's happening in the election, turnout, the excitement. any allegations of fraud. we know former president carter is in the region monitoring the vote. >> we have spoken with jimmy carter. he is not pleased at the amount of access his team has been given. they're only allow limited time to witness the voting. so far, there have been not too many violations reports. the once reported have been fairly minor, but could be significant if they happen while voting still is continuing today for about another hour and a half and tomorrow. the kind of voting violations we've been hearing about have been leveled at the islamic candidates in specific, the

muslim brotherhood which is accused of using the pulpit, using mosques to organize supporters and allowing clerics to at times gather the i.d. cards of some of their worshipers and then go vote for them. that is the biggest concern we're hearing from the variety of people in this country that islamic forces particularly the muslim brotherhood have the potential to gain too much control in this country. the brotherhood already controls parliament and if it wins the presidency, then the muslim brotherhood would dominate all political life in egypt. that would be a very radical change. as you said, there are five leading candidates. one of them a socialist, two of them are islamists including that one from the muslim brotherhood and two are members of the former regime. and egyptians are split with going for someone from the former regime, a vote for consistency or choosing a new islamic pathing. >> richard engel, exciting times there. thank you so much, richard.

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ready to help. it's no wonder so many investors are saying... [ all ] i'm with scottrade. i'm tamron hall. coming up on news nation, facebook shareholder mutiny. some investors are now filed a lawsuit against facebook an after the ipo does a face plant. plus, morgan stanley now under investigation. there's even been a call in the last hour for a senate hearing. one writer says it all adds to the mistrust of washington street. and for the first time since the president vowed to keep hitting romney over his bain record romney responds. we'll have reaction. speaking of reaction, will smith finally explains why he slapped a reporter on the red carpet. mitt romney spoke today to the latino coalition. it's a non-profit small business group in washington. but a new nbc news "wall street

journal" telemundo poll of respondents sos that romney has a lot of catching up to do with this key voting bloc. president obama holds a giants 34-point lead. latinos are more optimistic about the economy. though overall our poll show big doubts remain from the economy. nbc news chief white house correspondent and political director chuck todd, host of the daily rundown and political analyst charlie cook, editor and publisher of the cook political report. in the a surprise, the latino margin. or is this large a margin a surprise at all to you, chuck, first? >> it's not a surprise. it's what we've seen over the last year in tracking this data. this is a larger sample than we've done before. and our partners at telemundo, we're going to be doing this every month adding this since it's becoming a crucial voting bloc potentially swinging a few swing states back and forth. you got to watch the romney number here.

he cannot be much below 35. when you start looking at the numbers because that really puts states -- you can have -- he could win every election argument he wants but then demographics could cost him colorado, nevada. >> new mexico. >> put -- never mind new mexico. but even a florida, virginia, north carolina, all three states showed enormous growth among hispanics in the census. one other thing about this hispanic poll. you pointed out the optimism that's there. much more optimistic than our poll overall. but only about half of them see themselves as voters. this was not a -- this was not a group of voters saying they're enthusiastic or ready to engage in the political process yet. >> charlie cook, what about the pes six overall about the economy we see in this poll? >> i this i there's an enormous amount of concern. i think as the focus gets more and more over the political uncertainty in washington and

the physical cliff at the end of this year, i think it's going to add sort of add more gloomy clouds onto the horizon. the president needs the economy to bounce back pretty strongly lot of signs that ember 6th. sort of not happening. we're probably going to see the gdp figures revised from 2.2 down to 177 or 1.8. that's not going to go over when when people say it's not even going as well as we'd like. i thought the polls showed just a lot of reasons why this thing is going to be just razr tight. and you know what the president needs to pull away i didn't see a lot of evidence of that in the poll. even on the hispanic side. the president got 67% of the vote last time. and he's looking at 61% in this

poll. undecideds typically don't break towards incumbents. and as chuck said, are they going to turn out. i don't see the intensity whether you're looking at hispanics, whether you're looking at 1 to 29-year-olds. i'm assuming the african-american community turns out, but the key legs of that stool of 2008 i don't see the intensity there this time. >> one of the other legs of the stool are women. what about the gender gap? it certainly is consistent here. it shows again that previous pillows, "the new york times" poll was an outlier of the gender gap. in particular, where are the present president's strengths among women? >> there's a huge gap. sometimes i think we forget this gap and don't talk about it among married women and single women. married women it's more competitive between the two votes, very much a swing vote versus single women and single men, as well. where it's an enormous advantage for democrats usually overall but including the president

here. but it was interesting to see that mitt romney was doing better among suburban married women. that's probably as much of a swing vote as any. now again, all of these when we are looking at gender gaps they have high errors and could fluctuate more so than our standard fluctuate more so thane standard number there, but that's where romney has to make in roads when we talk about the gender gp. it is not men versus women. it is suburban women. >> off other things that's disappointing to say the least in the poll for those of us that like to see things get done, is the question about do you want a president who shows conviction or do you want a president willing to reach compromise and consensus on issues? let me ask both of you what this question and this answer means to you, charlie. >> i am trying to read it, 38% that seem common ground. >> 56% wanting who will just stand firm. >> i just wonder whether that's one of these questions where the

wording of the question can send it off in opposite directions. if you said standing your ground even if it means things don't get accomplished, that would change it enormously. i think that's one of these things where you can come up with a lot of different results by just shifting a couple words here or there. >> chuck, the wording? >> andrea, i just add, i think that we just want our presidents to be of spine. there is an expectation that the president is the lone chief, the chief executive, so i think there is an expectation of that more so, so i wonder how much that is. because when you ask about their own representative, that's a different story. if you ask it that way. i think there is something about the office of the presidency that also says, no, you're supposed to not guy that stands firm, the steel spine. >> remember ronald reagan saying that sound you are hearing around his feet when he signed a tax bill was the cement breaking. sometimes you have to compromise. thank you both very much.

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chris alyssa joins us. we have the battle ground state polls coming out tomorrow, and we also have the president on the road. >> well, you know, andrea, i am always excited, bless nbc for doing this, coming together and doing individual swing state polls in places like ohio and virginia. these numbers, the national numbers are important. no doubt they set kind of the broad environmental tone, but swing states i think tlsh about nine of them, ohio, virginia, definitely two of them, those are the races that really matter. we're looking at a series of state by state races, too, so thank you, nbc and chuck todd and andrea mitchell for pushing to too what i hope we do more of. >> and we'll do more and talk about it tomorrow. thank you, chris. the president will be in iowa at

the state fair. that does it for this addition of "andrea mitchell reports." tamron hall is a here with what's next. >> thank you, andrea mitchell. thank you. great hour. facebook shareholder mute any what, they're calling it. some investors have filed lawsuits after they do a face plant and morgan stanley under investigation and calls in the last hour for a senate hearing and one writer says it adds to the miss trust so many people have regarding wall street. for the first time since the president vowed to keep hitting mitt romney over his bain record, romney responds. we'll play what he said, and speaking of reaction, will smith explains why he slapped that reporter on the red carpet. we'll play that. is man is aboute the millionth customer. would you mind if i go ahead of you? instead we had someone go ahead of him and win fifty thousand dollars. congratulations you are our one millionth customer. people don't like to miss out on money that should have been theirs.

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